#engine!caesar goes back to using his number for a while before accepting a manager’s suggestion of silas

[anonymousboxcar]

This thought is late to the Ides of March party, but I’ve had it and I can’t get it out of my head: If engines are named after aristocrats and kings, maybe it wouldn’t be all that far-fetched for one to be named Caesar?

In the TTTE / RWS ‘verse, I can imagine Engine Caesar being very proud to be named after a Significant Historical Figure. It’s a sign of his importance, his higher station. He doesn’t shut up about it until someone informs him what exactly happened to the man.

I honestly think it fits in with the series’ ethos of not getting too big for your britches. Historical Caesar got too confident, too certain of himself and his control over Rome. There was even some extreme karmic comeuppance!

I also like the thought of Engine Caesar trying to keep that little historical event quiet from his peers. After weeks of throwing his weight around, he refuses to give the “lessers” any fuel for a revolt.

He doesn’t succeed.

On the morning of March 16th, only the engines know what happened the night before in the sheds. None of them are talking. Engine Caesar doesn’t talk much at all for the next couple days.

But Engine Caesar never answers to that name again (and becomes less of a bully in the yard).